A new update is now available for Monster Hunter World. The 550MB patch releases a new creature into the wilderness whilst also squashing more mundane bugs.

Making her return to the franchise, Lunastra: Empress of Flame was first encountered in Monster Hunter 2. The Elder Dragon is described as possessing “new tricks and unique abilities”. But she’s also more ferocious than her mate, Teostra, so put the two together and you’ve got trouble.

Defeating this empress gifts the victor with Lunastra-specific material, which can be used to craft a new range of armour and weapons. These are likened to the parts attained from Nergigante and Xeno’jiiva.

But Capcom doesn’t just want to give you that.

Update 4.0 will also add a new tool. The Temporal Mantel sounds like a useful item as it “nullifies damage from powerful attacks by automatically evading.” Saves us the trouble. Winner, winner.

It should also be easier to pet Poogie, should that have been keeping you up at night.

The full patch notes, which can also be found over on Capcom’s site, are as follows:

Major Additions and Changes

You will now also discover investigations for tempered monsters when hunting a tempered monster or breaking its parts.

You can now change armor pigments and layered armor at all item boxes found within Astera (except the Training Area) or the Research Base.

It’s now easier to successfully pet the Poogie.

The camera will not be forcibly moved by Scoutfly guidance when arriving at camp at the start of a quest.

The trophy conditions for “Monster Ph.D.” were updated to no longer include monsters added in free title updates.

With this design change, you can now unlock the trophy/achievement by speaking to Ecological Research if you’ve already maxed out the research levels for the original lineup of monsters.

When performing the Shoryuken or Hadoken gestures, male characters (or armor that makes you look like a male character) will now use Ryu’s voice from Street Fighter V, while female characters (or armor that makes you look like a female character) will now use Sakura’s voice from Street Fighter V.

Bug Fixes

Regarding the problem of the new guild card lighting system introduced in Ver. 2.00 affecting the appearance of a player’s character, the light settings have been adjusted to make it look similar to the lighting before Ver. 1.06.

Fixed a bug where only medals, not trophies, would be unlocked when ending the game while it is processing unlocked trophies and medals at the result screen. With this fix, if you have unlocked a medal but not a trophy, it will be unlocked the next time you get to a result screen.

Fixed a bug where Kulve Taroth’s broken horn cutscene was interrupted and the siege could not be completed when Kulve Taroth’s horns took separate damage right at the time they were completely broken off.

Fixed a bug where Kulve Taroth would go into an attack phase in area 1 and would not move to the next area, resulting in the siege becoming impossible to complete.

Fixed a bug where the siege of Kulve Taroth would end when a member of the siege goes to another quest, expedition or to the training area. This has been fixed so the siege can be continued.

Fixed a bug that occurs during the “Banquet in the Earthen Hall” quest when you open your Hunter’s Notes while in the tent just as Kulve Taroth’s horns are completely broken, causing the battle music to continue playing while the quest complete music plays on top of it.

Fixed terrain-related bugs in some locales.

Fixed a bug where a player would get an infinite buff under certain criteria upon a successful Foresight Slash.

Fixed a phenomenon where specific controls would allow you to link the Charge Blade’s Super Amped Element Discharge into an Amped Element Discharge. This was unintended and after considering how it affects the game’s balance, it has been removed.

Fixed a bug that allowed the player to face in a direction other than the reticle just before Wyvernheart is fired.

Fixed a bug that caused Gastodon to spot players in their territory even when wearing a Ghillie Mantle or hiding in bushes.

Fixed an issue where gestures could be performed when afflicted with any five elemental blights, blastblight, bleeding, but could not be performed when poisoned or afflicted with effluvium.

Fixed a bug where food skills would not be reflected on your Palico when joining a quest as a guest after eating at base.

Fixed a bug where the lighting on the two guns in the Devil May Cry Dual Guns gesture was not applied properly, making them look they were floating.

Fixed a bug where the Elderseal value for the weapon Taroth Buster “Decay” was set to “None”. It has now been changed to “Mid”.

Due to a data error, Taroth Strongarm “King” (Rarity 7) parameters were the same as King Gold Cutter (Rarity 6) in all areas except for number of augmentation slots. The Taroth Strongarm “King” has been updated with the following values.

Elemental Value: Fire 12 > Fire 18

Affinity: 20 > 30

Due to a data error, Felyne Lavasioth Helm α’s elemental resistance had the same values as Felyne Uragaan Helm α. The following values are now applied to Felyne Lavasioth Helm α.

Fire Resistance: 4 > 3

Water Resistance: -3 > -3

Thunder Resistance: 1 > -1

Ice Resistance: -2 > 1

Dragon Resistance: -2 > 3

The Felyne Azure Star series was mistakenly marked as rarity 2 from Ver. 2.00 and onward. It has now been reverted back to rarity 3.

Fixed a bug where a beard set on a female character during character creation would not appear when equipping the Kulve Taroth β armor set.